


Our Last Days as Children

by Renne



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Military, Personal Fanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-18
Updated: 2010-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-12 00:03:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Renne/pseuds/Renne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They exchange dog tags. In which Eames plots treason and dreams of a brighter future and Arthur finally understands that he can't know everything. Contains copious abuse of the ubiquitous 'they', angst galore and kissing in the rain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Last Days as Children

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://futureperfect.livejournal.com/846996.html).

"The PASIV device," Eames says. "I'm going to steal it."

"What?" Arthur half-starts out of his chair. The legs scrape noisily on the floor. "Eames, no, you can't!"

"I can. I will." Eames sounds terrifyingly calm for a man planning to commit treason against his adopted country. "It's too valuable to be left in the hands of one government."

"Who will you offer it to? The British?" Arthur asks. He scrubs his hand over his face. He can't believe Eames is seriously considering this – no, actually, he can. That's the problem. "They considered you a dangerous liability which is why you were deported. You'll be arrested the moment you set foot on English soil. Or were you going to use it as the bargaining chip to buy your way back into the country? Shit," and he sighs, reluctantly settling back into his seat, "you do this – you steal _this tech_ – and you'll be declared an enemy of the state. America won't stand by and just let this go."

"I'm aware of that," Eames says in a voice as determined as Arthur has ever heard it. He's resolute through the line of his shoulders, the firm set of his jaw, and when his gaze flicks up to Arthur's the almost feverish light in his eyes is frightening. Arthur reaches out instinctively. Eames meets him halfway, pressing his fingers lightly against Arthur's. "But this tech has so much promise. It could be used for so many better things than Project Somnacin. Instead of just teaching soldiers how to fight better, to _kill_ better, or – or teaching them how to break—" He stops suddenly and shakes his head, his mouth set in a stubborn line. "I'm not asking for your help, Arthur. I'm not asking you do this with me."

"Good." Arthur pushes his chair back, pinching at the bridge of his nose as it begins to dawn just what this means for him. "Good, because I wouldn't. I won't. You know I – God, Eames, you know I'm obliged to report this! Why would you even tell me about it?" The headache that has been threatening all day hits with a vengeance. Arthur presses his fingers to his temples. "You've made me complicit just by telling me," he says angrily. "If you do this and they find out I have prior knowledge, _I'll_ go down too."

"You have to know. You're the only one I can tell, because you're just about the only person left that I trust. And... I need you to know why. You need to know that it's – that I'm doing this for you too. Because it's _them_ , Arthur, and it's sick what they do, what they make me do, and I can't—"

Arthur slams his hand against the edge of the tabletop. "Then tell them!" he cries, furious. He knows it's disconcerting to get killed by friends and colleagues over and over, but Eames is doing exactly the same dream work as all the other participants, isn't he? Arthur hasn't ever thought Eames even remotely a coward, but this is... well, maybe Eames' breaking point has come sooner than Arthur realised.

The thought leaves a sour taste in his mouth and he has to struggle to keep the disappointment from his face as he says, "Tell them you want out of the program."

"You think I haven't tried?" Eames' voice rises sharply, showing the first cracks in his control. "You have no idea what they do to me when they put me under. You? You at least get to build; you get to go into all the dreams and build beautiful worlds. Occasionally you join in the team games and kill 'em all death matches, but it means nothing to you because _it is nothing_. What do you think they do with all those other mazes you build, Arthur? The ones they make you teach to others? And to the special forces operators?"

"I – I don't know." It's not something Arthur's ever thought about. He'd just assumed that he was building and teaching to get used to doing it, and that the operators he taught were learning for the same reason. Arthur has a sinking feeling that he's about to learn how wrong he's really been. He tugs his chair back in, hesitantly sliding his hand back across the tabletop towards Eames. Offering.

Eames looks at his hand, but this time he seems unwilling to meet Arthur halfway. Instead he links his fingers together in front of him and Arthur is stunned to see that they're trembling. "I can change what I look like in dreams," Eames says abruptly.

"Huh?" There's an odd tone to Eames' voice which Arthur eventually figures out is iron control. Then he realises what Eames has said. "You can change what you look like?" he echoes stupidly.

Eames nods. "I can make myself look completely different, like anyone I want. Even like you, if I wanted to. And when I change it doesn't alert the projections. Did you know that? The projections don't even notice. I tried to teach others how, but no one else could quite manage it. Some of them could change bits and pieces – hair colour, noses, skin tone and the like. But not into a whole different person the way I could." His knuckles are white. "Since I couldn't teach anyone else how to do it, they used me instead."

Arthur reaches forward, curling his hand over Eames' wrist. He can feel the tension radiating through Eames and it unnerves him. "Used you for what?"

"Hunting." Eames stares through Arthur, his gaze distant. "Oh, it was brilliant fun at the start, the first couple of dozen times. Me against a whole team as they ran me down through your beautiful mazes, the ones you'd taught the special ops boys. I'd see how many shifts I could go through before they finally caught up with me. But after a while that wasn't enough, so more... creative uses for my skills were found, because it's easier to teach by example than theory."

Eames blinks and suddenly his gaze sharpens on Arthur. "Did you know the longest I can take being waterboarded is 20 seconds in a session? Who would have guessed." He grimaces. "'Eames,' they'd say, 'we want you to forge this al-Qaeda operative, this is the information he knows, try to hold out for as long as you can, off you go, that's a good boy.'"

Arthur stares at him, feeling sick to his stomach. He'd had no idea because he'd never asked. He'd just assumed that the growing shadows in Eames' eyes were tiredness from hard work. Guilt unfurls a dark and heavy weight in Arthur's chest, because now Arthur is looking he can see the visible stress tells in Eames and doesn't know how he could ever have missed them. The hollowness of Eames' cheeks, the bruised circles under his eyes, the new lines on his face.

This is why Eames has to do it. This is why he feels like he can't do anything else.

Arthur understands now.

When Eames' tone suddenly dips slyly, it's one of those whiplash changes Arthur has learned to anticipate. "Have you noticed how we still use the prototype? How every time we use a new build it fails catastrophically after the first or second try?" He shrugs and the slyness drops away. "There's an English professor I know who's been running studies into dream-sharing. I trust him. I think that with him we might be able to get it right this time around. I'll give him the prototype and teach him what he needs to know to use it."

Eames looks down at his hands, at Arthur's fingers still curled around his wrist. "I'm not going to ask you to betray your country, Arthur, and I won't let you. But you needed to know why I'm going to do this." He sighs and falls silent.

Eventually Arthur asks, "When?"

Leaning forward, Eames cups Arthur's jaw, running his thumb across Arthur's mouth. His touch is light, his skin rough but familiar. "Best you don't know," he says, lowering his hand. "You can't lie about what you don't know." He glances away.

"If they catch you they'll kill you," Arthur says suddenly, but knows it doesn't matter. He can see the shift of shadows across Eames' face.

Eames is smiling when he looks back at Arthur. "If they catch me."

  
Arthur stops in his tracks in the stairwell as he hears two soft noises somewhere above him. He raises his gun and silently eases across to his right to peer up through the handrails above.

The sounds are the scuff of a boot against polished concrete and the soft, hollow thud of a door held before closing. He doesn't think about it, he just darts up the stairs towards the rooftop door, bursting through and outside, the door slamming shut behind him before he can catch it. The boom echoes down the stairwell even over the pounding rain and he curses, knowing it'll draw his squad to the rooftop.

"Eames!" he shouts as he dashes forward, seeing a familiar figure moving away through the downpour.

Eames stops, his hand resting on the waist high concrete lip running around the edge of the rooftop and looks back at Arthur. It's been months and his hair is a longer than Arthur remembers, plastered to his forehead by the rain. He turns away, bracing like he's about to boost himself up onto the edge of the building.

"Eames, no, wait—!"

And he does, at Arthur's shout. He hesitates as Arthur leaps over a rusting duct, boots crunching then slipping on the loose shale of fractured concrete and water. Arthur throws a hand out, steadying himself on the edge of an air-conditioning unit, and continues forward.

"It's done, Arthur. I'm sorry," Eames calls over the noise of the rain as Arthur approaches him. His shoulders hunch defensively and he holds up his hand warningly, like he thinks Arthur would stop him. That Eames could think Arthur's changed so much hurts Arthur inside. "Even if I wanted to change this, we both know it's gone too far. You said it yourself, right? They'll kill me if they catch me."

"I know."

Eames hefts the matt black case holding the PASIV device prototype and five samples of the Somnacin compound before shoving it into a pack he then slings across his back. "This technology is going to change the world. Getting this out there... it'll level the playing field."

It's the sad failure of conviction in Eames' words, like he no longer believes in what he's saying but knows there's nothing he can do to take it back or fix it, that breaks Arthur's heart. Arthur swipes water out of his eyes – rain, it's just rain – with the back of his hand. "Oh Eames."

"I swear, Arthur, if there were any other way..."

"I know," Arthur says. The rain falls unbroken for a long moment as Arthur studies Eames' gaunt, exhausted face and wonders if he’ll ever see him again. Or if the next time he sees him it'll be too soon and as he's being zipped into a body bag. The thought is like a fist tightening around Arthur's heart.

"I love you," Eames offers wistfully.

Arthur smiles. Helplessly. "I know."

Eames reaches out and cups Arthur's cheek in his palm. Arthur tips his face into Eames' hand, soaking up the warmth in his touch even as he tries to memorise the colour of Eames' eyes, the angle of his cheekbones and the curve of his lips when he smiles. Eames swipes his thumb across Arthur's cheek then lowers his hand, reaching inside his collar and fishing out his dog tags. He looks down at them a moment, before laughing once, bitterly. "I guess I won't be needing these anymore, will I?" He tugs sharply and the ball chain snaps.

"Here," Eames says, "for you," and presses the dog tags into Arthur's hand. The dangling chain sticks to Arthur's wet skin, curling around his wrist. "Don't you dare forget me."

The metal digs into Arthur's palm as he closes his hand tightly. "I won't," he says. "I promise."

Arthur doesn't think twice before fishing his own tags out from under his shirt and tugging them off over his head. He doesn't hand them to Eames and instead slides them into Eames' pocket, right over his heart. "For luck," Arthur says, smoothing down the material flap. Even through layers of wet material Arthur can feel the familiar heat of Eames' body and it's almost incomprehensible to him that this is it, this is where they end.

Then Arthur closes the last of the distance between them, free hand curving around the back of Eames' head, fingers tangling through wet hair as he pulls their mouths together. They kiss, and Arthur tries to pour all the things he can't say into it, tasting rain and grief, as Eames pulls him closer. They kiss, desperate and hard, and he arches in against Eames to feel the familiar weight of his body one last time. They kiss, pressed together in the rain and Eames touches Arthur's neck and cheeks and hair, his movements frantic and fragile. They kiss and they kiss and they kiss and Arthur holds on and on and on, praying this moment will last for forever, but knowing it can't.

Then Arthur hears the door to the stairwell slam open and shoves Eames away. "Go," he says.

"Arthur—"

" _Go!_ " he shouts. He can hear the sounds behind him, his squad breaking onto the rooftop and fanning out to search, just as they've been trained.

Eames gives him one last helpless look. Then he lifts his hand and blows Arthur a kiss, before vaulting over the lip of the wall. Arthur darts forward, gripping the rough cement as he leans out over the edge.

There's little to see, just the swirl of rain caught in the wind and the twist and flick of a vanishing rope, far below.


End file.
